I am revising my Vertical Horizon Space to include what I call New Horizons, in order to log and blog about training and athletic endeavor. I still want to do blogs on some of my past climbs, but I want to concentrate forward as much as possible, which has kept me away from this site for some time. I have enjoyed and admired my friends on spaces who have shared their running and biking, and although this is a little scary, I will try to do the same here.

After a winter fraught with cold weather and intermittent high winds it has been a wonderful 20 something degrees and relatively light winds since mid February. I got back on my skis and have managed to work out every day since, augmenting the ski program with a couple indoor run/walks. So far I have logged 50K on my skis, not bad for the first couple weeks and a cold start, and 10K in two sessions of run/walk. Anchorage has some 150K of groomed trails, many are lighted, and the only indoor 400 meter track in North America at the Alaska Dome. It sure is nice to run where it’s warm! I am adding running to hopefully have another activity to carry on through the summer and add to my cross training choices.

It's good to have the first two weeks behind me!

The skiing I do incorporates the skate ski technique, I used to classic ski also but have pretty much given that up. I began skate skiing in 1997 and have competed in several 20K and 25K races. Because of my late start this year my choices for races are limited to one or more of a few events at the end of March and into April.

For the first couple weeks I limited my efforts to short 2.5-7.5K skis, and last week my overall goal was 30K which I made. My goal this week is to extend the individual distance to 10K and log in 40K for the week. I will be working on skiing faster and more steady. I want to do another run sometime this week also.

 Longer term goals include a possible ski race this month or next, if I am sufficiently satisfied with my results. If my running works out I will be looking for a 5K this month or next. I will set specific event goals when I have enough confidence in my progress.

I have kept detailed logs of my skiing since almost day 1, and have a chart that shows the distances on a cumulative scaled graph.